How Chinese People Celebrate Chinese New Year _ Yoyo Chinese.

Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival and Lunar New Year, is pretty much the biggest holiday of the year in China. If you're not going to be in China to welcome the new year, but you'd like to join in on some of the holiday festivities, here are some traditions that you too can participate in, no matter where you're located. Traditions do vary from region to region in China, and from family to family, but these are some of the most widely practiced activities. Number one, create and hang homemade dui lian, or rhyming couplets. Red paper, black paint, a paintbrush, and a saying is all you'll need to add festivity and good fortune to your home in the coming year. Dui lian, also known as chun lian, are poetry couplets where the two lines are antithetical yet contain complimentary words that bring good fortune to the home and its residents. Use your best calligraphy skills to write out the three lines and tape them around your doorframe. You can find many ready-to-write sayings online. Choose one specific to the Chinese zodiac year approaching, or find another couplet that you like. Number two, make homemade jiaozi, or dumplings. A common tradition in northern China is to make dumplings for the new year. From mixing up the dough, to rolling out the wrappers and filling them, to boiling the dumplings on the stove, it's a process that the whole family can get involved in. Some families even put a freshly washed coin inside a dumpling. The person who gets that dumpling will have good fortune all year long. Number three, go shopping for new clothes and accessories. It's customary to treat yourself and your loved ones to new clothes to wear as you usher in the Chinese new year. If this is your ban ming nian, the year of your birth zodiac sign, then it's tradition to wear at least one red item every day for the whole year to negate the bad luck brought on by the year. Belts, socks, and underwear are the most common ways that Chinese people work red into their wardrobe on a daily basis. But red outerwear such as sweaters, scarves, and dresses are acceptable too. Number four, clean the house from top to bottom. Depending on your personality, this might not be the most fun activity on the list. But in China, it's essential to start the new year with a clean house to symbolize a fresh new start. Sweep away all the dust and bad memories and open the door to a year of endless possibilities. This wraps up the list of the biggest traditions for celebrating Chinese New Year. Come next Chinese New Year, you can try some of these out yourself.